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The soccer ball was coming right at me, it's greenish-yellowish glow in the dark pentagons had me entranced like a deer gazing into the halogen glow of an oncoming car. The projectile was on course for my my groin, it was to be a direct hit in my boilermaker, my netherlands, the holiest of holies, twig and berries, meat and two veg, bollocks, cojones, the knackers, well...you get the idea. Upon contact I doubled over as the sensation moved from my nuggets and started wrenching my gut. My son, who launched the ball, gleefully exclaimed, "I kicked the ball in your nut!".
"It's plural son...nuts," my inner English teacher forced in reply, "at least for now."
Lately my son has been obsessed with hitting and getting hit in the nuts. One of his little buddies accidentally kicked him in his...well...little buddies. As young boys often do, they both thought it was hilarious. I'm not sure when getting walloped in baggage claim goes from being funny to being intensely painful. However, seeing another guy taking a shot to the knapsack, or fall a good distance only to land straddling a beam of some sort, will always be a little funny.
"You shouldn't hit people there son." I was attempting to explain this unwritten man rule to the boy.
"Why not?" E asked through a beaming smile.
"When you grow up, it really hurts." I exhaled.
I'm always amazed at how durable kids are. They seem so fragile that I'm sure I handle mine with too much care sometimes. However accidents do happen. Z bounced off of our trampoline and broke her arm not long ago. I reckon throughout my childhood, youth, and young adult life, I've been dinged in the danglers on many an occasion. It always hurts, sometimes more than others, but always, it hurts. That's part of growing up though, isn't it? Moments of hurt followed by recovery, followed by moving on.
My father surprised us with a trampoline one summer, bringing it home for no apparent reason. I spent hours and hours practicing tricks and testing the limits of it's elasticity. Naturally, I held many a professional wrestling match against imaginary foes, in fact I was the world heavyweight champion of my imaginary professional wrestling organization. Not bad for a 5th grader. Anyone who has ever watched an episode of America's Funniest Videos knows that trampolines are ripe with comedic potential. Comedy based on, as most comedy is, pain. I once over-rotated on a front flip and as I sprang forward from a failed landing I crashed, throat first against the frame of the trampoline. The speed at which I hit the cold steel caused me to feel like I dislodged my Adam's Apple. I couldn't talk or breath for what seemed like minutes. It hurt, but I recovered and moved on.
There is a vague memory somewhere in my mind of the time I ran my arm through the window pane of our front door. At the time, I couldn't have been more than 5 or 6. I recall being excited that my favorite cartoon was on, I was purposely overreacting to the news to get a laugh out of the babysitter or a neighbor. I ran to the door, knowing that because it was an old door I would need the extra leverage that pushing against the window pane would give me, to get the door to open. The pane, being equally as old as the door, succumbed to my weight. As the glass shattered my arm went through and got snagged on a shard of glass. I now have a 3 inch scar to remind me of the impatience of my youth. It hurt, but I recovered and moved on.
There is pain sometimes so crippling and intense, one wonders if healing is even possible. My grandfather, Emerson Stevens, who my first son is named after, passed away when I was fairly young. I have scattered memories along a broken timeline of him. In the summers I loved to ride around the fairgrounds with him in an old golf cart, as we delivered cans of soda to volunteers who were helping park cars or direct traffic. He would let me have as many Red Creme Sodas, as I could finish on our excursions. He took me to see, Dick the Bruiser at my first professional wrestling event at that fair. In my grandparents living room, where my family would often gather to eat popcorn and watch the IU Hoosiers play ball, he used to playfully pin me to the ground, using only his corduroy-slip-on-shoe covered feet, wrestling me from his rocking chair. He used to get a kick out of setting off firecrackers underneath used coffee cans as all the grandchildren screamed and covered their ears. In my mind's eye he was big, strong, and slightly imposing. I always looked up to him.
As I said, I was young when he passed away and the memories of his passing all run together in a water color painting of hospital visits and a funeral. I do remember being to scared to go into his hospital room one last time to say goodbye. Seeing my family weeping around his bedside was too much for me, I couldn't make sense of it all, and so, fear got the better of me.
I can't say for certain if he was in pain as he was dying, I was too young to remember. But, I do recall the pain my grandmother felt watching her husband's condition deteriorate. Her anguish was palpable even to my young senses. The Sunday after grandpa's death I sat next to grandma in the pew at Second St. Church of Christ. The service was over, and the preacher was making his announcements. As he told the church that Emerson Stevens passed away and explained the details of the funeral and visitation, I began to cry. Next to me, my grandma began sobbing and out of the corner of my eye I could see her shoulders bobbing up and down. I remember she put her arm around me and hugged me close to her, as much for her comfort as mine. She said, "We'll be alright." As much to convince herself as me.
For months after grandpa was gone, my parents, brother, and I would go to Bloomington to visit and make sure she was doing alright. When we would leave to go home, she would walk out to the driveway to see us off. I can still see her waving goodbye as we pulled away, barely capable of holding back the tears, voice cracking as she pleaded for us to come back soon. It was her pain, seeping out of wounds that life left behind. She was scared of being alone, how could she not be? For over fifty years she had shared her life with the man she loved. That kind of relationship between two people creates a fertile soil for a pain that few will experience. A pain rooted in love and loss. Even considering the pain that grandpa's death caused her, I know grandma wouldn't trade her life with him for anything this world could offer.
And so, life moves irrevocably forward and it has be twenty-plus years since I last saw my grandfather.
Grandma will turn 98 this year. She has lived well in the years since she lost her husband. She worked into her 80's, at one point working as an activities director at nursing home helping to care for residents much younger than she. Perhaps to find solace after grandpa's death, she picked up a paintbrush and began to paint vibrant oil paintings. As it turns out, she is an immensely talented artist. She still lives at home by herself, in the house where she and grandpa built a remarkable life and raised a family.
She hurt, but she recovered, and she moved on.
below is a link to a news article the Bloomington Herald Times featured on my grandma.
"Home is Where Her Hobbies Are"
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| Grandma at her home on Moffet Lane. |
